[open-government] Open Data and Open Access are not enough (Digest vol 30, issue 11)

[Pia Waugh]

Hi all,

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 4:52 AM, Ivo Babaja <ivobab at gmail.com> wrote:

> David asked:
>
> Who is responsible for driving outcomes from all the work put in to
> deliver this Open Data?
>
> Isn't it what politicians and political parties should take care of ?
> Interested NGOs should help also.
>
> I believe that one of the benefits of open data is to make political
> fights more useful and to the point.
>
> And it is something to require, along with simple data access.
>

I think it is the role of the public service to proactively publish public
information. It actually helps the public service be more engaging, build
trust, get better policy outcomes, share data across departments, and
transparency ends up being the best protection for the public service in a
lot of ways. The politicians have a role but the bulk of the work will
always be with the administration, so getting policies right at that level,
and culture change, and good technology procurement that enables open data
(or at least doesn't lock data up) are all important parts of the puzzle.

Getting more transparency into political offices would also be good, but
the vast majority of government data is in the public service. The public
service has good reasons to do open data, so that is where it makes sense
to focus. NGOs, civil society, industry, individuals can all be far better
engaged in democracy/policy when the public service proactively opens data
and proactively engages in collaboration and co-production of policy.

Just my thoughts, I look forward to the discussion at OKFest.

Cheers,
Pia Waugh
(Australia)
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